The Host Defense Group of the Laboratory of Respiratory Biology, Division of Intramural Research, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, headed by Michael B. Fessler, MD now enters its eighth year at the NIEHS since inception. We have now published several manuscripts. Publications since the last annual report include: 1) a collaborative report showing that invasion of host cells by Salmonella is preferential during metaphase due to exofacial leaflet partitioning of cholesterol (Santos AJ et al., J Cell Sci 2013). 2) an invited reply to a Letter to the Editor of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology addressing our report on the relationship between allergen-specific IgE and myocardial infarction in the U.S. (Jaramillo et al., J Allergy Clin Immunol 2013). 3) a report identifying a novel role for the tumor suppressor p53 in host defense during bacterial pneumonia (Madenspacher JH et al., J Exp Med 2013). 4) a collaborative report identifying CD11b/CD18 (Mac-1) as a novel cell-surface receptor for double-stranded RNA (Zhou H et al., J Immunol 2013). 5) a report identifying that apolipoprotein mimetic peptides influence leukocyte migration through exerting FPR2/ALX-dependent chemotactic activity (Madenspacher JH et al., J Biol Chem 2012). 6) a collaborative report on the acute and chronic effects of low-density lipoprotein on neutrophil function (Palvinskaya T et al., Pulm Pharmacol Ther 2013). 7) a collaborative report that expression of the cholesterol transporter ATP Binding Cassette (ABC)A1 in myeloid cells regulates host defense against the intracellular pathogen Listeria monocytogenes (Zhu X et al., Circ Res 2012). Additional accomplishments since our last report include invited talks by Dr. Fessler at the North Carolina State University Workshop on Allergy and Inflammation, Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine, and the 2013 Gordon Research Conference on Vascular Cell Biology. Dr. Fessler also served as a poster session facilitator at the 2013 American Thoracic Society International Conference. Several of Dr. Fesslers trainees also received awards since the last report, including summer student William Ge (seminfinalist in both 2103 Intel Science Talent Search and 2013 Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology), postdoctoral fellow Kymberly Gowdy (First Place, Postdoctoral Fellow Poster Competition, Visiting Pulmonary Scholars Symposium, UNC Friday Center), and graduate student Michael Henderson (awardee, UNC Program in Translational Medicine).